This invention relates to recording disk cartridges and, more particularly, to recording disk cartridges of the general type comprising a housing in which at least one recording disk may be mounted for rotation about its axis, and and a cover normally disposed over the lower end of the housing and capable of being removed when the cartridge is loaded into a disk drive and placed upside-down on top of the cartridge housing for storage.
The general type of disk cartridge above-described is well-known and has been used for some time. The IBM 5440 disk cartridge, which has a single magnetic recording disk, is one example and a disclosure of such disk cartridge may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,635,608. An example of a disk drive in which such a cartridge may be used is disclosed in copending U.S. application Ser. No. 633,206 filed on Nov. 19, 1975 in the name of James L. Johnson for Improved Linear Actuator and assigned to the assignee of the present invention, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,012,778.
It would be desirable if a recording disk cartridge having more than one disk mounted therein could be utilized in the same disk drive that normally is adapted to accomodate a single disk cartridge, such as the disk drive disclosed in the above-referenced application Ser. No. 633,206.
A problem with utilizing the same type of cartridge disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,635,608, but with the requisite number of disks mounted therein, e.g. three, is while there would probably be enough room in the disk drive to accomodate the cartridge housing assembly itself without the removable cover, there would be no room to store the cover on top of the housing. Specifically the rim defined in the top of the housing of the cartridge disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,635,608 would result in a substantial increase in the combined height of the housing assembly and cover with the cover positioned on top of the housing in the rim. Such significant combined height would be greater than the storage capacity of most drives, such as the one disclosed in application Ser. No. 633,206. Accordingly, the cover would have to be left out of the drive during use of the cartridge.
Not being able to store the removable cover in the drive during use of the cartridge is not only an inconvenience to the operator, but the cover can become contaminated when not in place on the cartridge and may be misplaced during use of the cartridge.
It would be desirable, therefore, to provide a disk cartridge having a desired number of disks rotatably mounted therein, e.g. three, wherein the maximum height of the cartridge with the cover positioned on top of the housing for storage is substantially the same as or less than the maximum height of conventional one disk cartridges with the cover in storage position, such as the cartridge disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,635,608.